


Break Up/ Break Down

by Maayacola



Category: Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-01
Updated: 2011-11-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 19:46:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1400242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maayacola/pseuds/Maayacola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever this is, Yamapi can’t do it anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s nothing official. Nothing to tell the parents about, or update a Facebook relationship status over. It’s nothing binding, nothing to keep Jin from picking up girls in clubs or Yamapi from saying in interviews that he’s still very much on the market. 

But it definitely is. Yamapi isn’t sure if it’s some bizarre extension of their friendship, or some separate fucked up thing that they’ve started that Yamapi doesn’t know how to stop. Doesn’t know how to want to stop. 

Whatever it is, it sometimes causes Jin to lean in and kiss him slowly and deeply, slipping his tongue between Yamapi’s parted lips and exploring the heat and slickness of Yamapi’s mouth, blowing puffs of hot air against Yamapi’s molars as he exhales without breaking away, and making short, high-pitched purring noises as Yamapi’s tongue starts to fight back, and Yamapi’s hand finally tangles in the messy fluff that passes for Jin’s hair. 

Whatever it is, it sometimes results in Yamapi on all fours, his hands desperately clutching the sheets, clutching anything as Jin kneels behind him, draped over his back, hands gripping his hips hard enough to bruise, nails digging into his skin in a way that hurts as much as it arouses, as Jin slams into him over and over again. Yamapi shudders with every thrust, his body shaking as Jin sheathes himself to the hilt, and then slowly withdraws, before pounding back in again, brushing Yamapi’s prostate and driving him higher and higher. 

Whatever it is, it makes Yamapi wait until Jin is asleep to press soft kisses to his brow, and brush Jin’s hair from his face, and just look at him, just look at him until he can’t fight off the drowsiness and he falls into slumber, Jin’s peaceful countenance emblazoned in relief on the back of his eyelids. 

Whatever it is, Yamapi can’t do it anymore, because he wants more than he can have, and watching Jin grind against an attractive Western girl at a club makes him see green, makes his blood boil and keeps him from breathing. And when Jin leaves with her, and goes back to her place, Yamapi always drinks enough to ensure he passes out, because he can only face his heart in the light of day, when Jin is freshly showered, smelling like Yamapi’s shampoo because he is too cheap to buy his own, and smiling at him sweetly, eyes glimmering with mischief and joie de vivre. 

Sometimes, Yamapi has this dream, where Jin comes into his room in the middle of the night, climbing into his bed and straddling him, and then he leans close and nuzzles Yamapi’s neck as his hand slides across Yamapi’s bare chest. Then Jin rips out his heart and eats it. 

Those are the nights Yamapi knows this can’t go on.

***

The first time it happens, things are like always, and then they are different. 

Yamapi is in the bathroom. He brushes his teeth, and then he washes his face, splashing the cold water liberally to clear away the soap. Jin comes in without knocking, as usual. “You’re such a girl,” he jokes, grabbing his toothbrush and haphazardly brushing his teeth. “Taking forever in the bathroom. I live here too, woman.”

“As an idol, I have to take care of my appearance. Not all of us sell the ‘just rolled out of bed and looking like a hobo but you know I’m sexy’ image, you know,” Yamapi says, as he turns and glares at Jin, as water trickles down his neck and chest. Jin follows the trail of water with his eyes, and before Yamapi knows what is happening, he is trapped by Jin’s arms, the sink bowl digging into his back, and Jin is licking a drop of water of his abs with the flat of his tongue. Jin’s eyes flicker up to Yamapi’s face, and Yamapi can see the liquid lust in his gaze. “Is this okay?”

And. And Yamapi’s never thought about it before, but it’s Jin so of course it’s okay. He’s never been able to say no to Jin about anything, and that’s why they have a plaid sofa and a dog, even though Yamapi is mildly allergic to animals and hates patterned furniture. And he’s about to tell Jin it’s okay, but Jin can read the assent in his eyes and before Yamapi can say anything at all, Jin takes his mouth. ‘Takes’ means he devours it, his mouth covering Yamapi’s, licking his lips and sucking on the top and then the lower lip, thumbs pressed to Yamapi’s cheekbones and hands flat against his cheeks. Yamapi can’t help but moan as Jin messily dives into his mouth, stealing Yamapi’s saliva lovejuice and giving him some of his own. He pulls away and their mouths stay connected with a thin line of it, and Jin is breathing hard and Yamapi thinks he might be too but he can’t even hear anything over the loud thumping of his heartbeat. 

Jin takes his body right there in the bathroom, Yamapi bracing himself against the wall of the shower as Jin grabs something slippery from the medicine cabinet and recklessly jams two fingers into Yamapi. Yamapi is so hard it hurts, and he’s shivering because he’s too cold and he’s too hot all at the same time, and Jin is driving into him and it hurts, but Yamapi doesn’t want it to stop because he has to know what it feels like to come with Jin inside of him. It’s rough, and quick, and Yamapi is coming so hard his knees buckle, but Jin is holding him upright and then Jin is gasping low into his ear and Yamapi doesn’t know what’s happening.

Jin kisses him softly on the back of the neck, and they don’t talk about it. 

***

For a while, Yamapi thinks the situation is perfect. He doesn’t have time for a relationship, not really, and this thing with Jin is sex when they both want it, with no strings and no conditions. And also it’s Jin, who Yamapi knows better than anyone in the world and trusts more than he’ll ever trust some random girl at a club that he doesn’t know. And Jin knows him too, and they can read each other’s bodies in a way that Yamapi finds fascinating. He knows just where to touch Jin to make him make certain little noises, knows it without thought or premeditation, and his lips find sensitive places on instinct alone. Jin’s body is a road he feels like he’s traveled before, soft and hard at the same time, and even though they’ve never been this, being this is so easy. 

But then Yamapi starts wanting to kiss Jin at the strangest times, like when Jin sits half awake at the breakfast table, his hair flat on one side of his head and his eyes ringed under with black. He starts wanting to hold him, not as some prelude to sex, but just to feel him warm and breathing in his arms. 

These are things he knows he’s not supposed to feel, so he ruthlessly crushes them when they appear in his minds eye, relegating them to the list of things he’s not allowed to think about. 

The biggest problem is that Jin is his best friend. He isn’t just attracted to Jin’s body, (although night after night of allowing Jin to press against him in new and exciting ways has proved that he is attracted to Jin’s body,) it’s that he’s attracted to Jin’s soul. That’s why they’re best friends. Because Jin is the kind of guy who will thoughtlessly insult you without realizing he’s doing it, but he’ll also pick up a stray ugly cat and bring it home and nurse it back to health, or remember that Yamapi hates mushrooms and make sure to change all of his recipes so Yamapi isn’t forced to confront one at dinner time. He’s the kind of guy that’ll work for 24 hours straight and then do Yamapi’s laundry because Yamapi’s just worked 26. 

Yamapi remembers being 14, curled up in Jin’s arms as his family fell apart before his eyes. He remembers feeling lost and finding an anchor in Jin’s eyes, in Jin’s heart. He remembers crying and Jin wrapping him up in his arms and telling him that it’s going to be okay. He remembers believing him. 

But this thing they have. 

Whatever it is, Yamapi knows what it’s not. It’s not a relationship, it’s just sex and being friends and not being allowed to feel jealous and it’s Jin still fucking other people when they go out and it’s Yamapi feeling more restless, more lost than he’s felt since his father left and this time Jin’s arms can’t save him, because Jin’s arms are the root of his difficulties, in that he doesn’t ever want to leave them, but Jin doesn’t want him to stay.

Koyama is worried about him. They all are, Yamapi can tell. But Koyama is the most transparent, because Koyama has tendencies. “Leader, have some shrimp fry,” Koyama offers, because whenever there’s a problem, Koyama tries to fix it with food, like he learned from his mother. Yamapi wishes he could eat and eat and eat and all that food would fill up the empty spaces until his heart felt full, but Yamapi knows it doesn’t work like that.  
***  
Jin likes it when Yamapi sucks him off. He always watches, fascinated, as Yamapi’s pouting mouth descends down on him, taking him all the way in until Jin’s cock hits the back of his throat. Yampi loves the way Jin makes this tiny mewling sound when his tongue brushes across the slit, alternating between fast and slow in the way he has learned drives Jin crazy. Jin always fists his hands in Yamapi’s hair, gently trying to change the pace, but Yamapi never lets him. Yamapi feels like so much of this is careening out of control, but here, at least, he is setting the course. Jin moans and demands and Yamapi answers by moving faster, spitting and letting it run down to the base of Jin’s cock, before diving back down quickly. 

When Jin comes, Yamapi always makes sure that Jin is watching him before he swallows. Jin likes that, it makes his spent body quiver just a little bit, and Yamapi files the memory in the back of his mind, to be savored later when he indulges in thinking about how perfect Jin looks underneath of him in the moonlight.

***

Suddenly it becomes too much for him to bear. 

He’s boiling, bursting, rushing out of his skin and it can’t keep going like this or he’s going to explode into a thousand pieces, scattered into the winds or the oceans and left to the mercy of the unwavering earth. 

His heart is breaking.

And Jin doesn’t seem to feel anything at all.

Sometimes, Yamapi feels Jin leave in the night, returning to his own bed.

Always, Yamapi wakes up alone.

***

Yamapi tries to reject Jin’s advances more often, but Jin doesn’t seem to get it. He just pushes and pushes, and Yamapi’s never been able to say no to Jin, even when Jin’s touch cuts him so deep he’s sure everyone can see his insides spilling out of him.

***

Yamapi finds it fitting that he’s sitting in their bathroom, where it all began, when it all comes crashing down around him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you these days?” Jin asks, standing in the doorway of the bathroom, eyebrows knitting together. His hair is pulled back haphazardly from his face, and he’s looking down at Yamapi in concern. 

Jin is beautifully imperfect, in a way that Yamapi can’t deny anymore than he can deny that they sky is blue. Jin is also like a poison that is eating him from the inside out. 

“I can’t do this,” Yamapi chokes out, staring at the light switch on the wall to the left of Jin’s shoulder. 

“Do what?” He can hear the confusion in Jin’s voice. 

“This,” Yamapi says, his voice stronger than before.

“I don’t get it.” Jin looks honestly perplexed. Yamapi wants to explain it, but he doesn’t know how. 

It’s not something simple. Jin isn’t Yamapi’s air. Jin smokes, and Yamapi prefers the scent of fresh laundry, or the clear oxygen at the top of a mountain, which makes him lightheaded and buoyant. Jin isn’t Yamapi’s light. He likes Jin just as much in the dark as he does in the light, and Jin doesn’t glow anyway, he just flickers, just bright enough for Yamapi’s eyes to trace the line of his body as he fucks him in the night. 

Jin is Yamapi’s star. Always has been. Yamapi doesn’t need starlight to see, or to breathe, but Yamapi thinks he might need starlight to dream. 

Jin is a star, and he is so so high up in the sky that Yamapi knows he’ll never be able to reach him, can’t imagine reaching him; he can only admire him from afar, held down to earth by both gravity and reality. And Yamapi knows he can’t explain it like that, because it barely makes sense to him. 

“Because I love you,” Yamapi says instead, and he’s never thought about it that way, but it’s inescapably true. “I love you,” he says again, and tastes it on his tongue, on his lips, and it tastes like Jin.

“I love you too,” Jin replies, and he still looks bewildered. “What does that have to do with any of this?”

Yamapi doesn’t know exactly how to make Jin see. “Sometimes, when I’m sitting next to you, I just want to hold your hand, just so everyone will know you’re mine,” Yamapi says helplessly.

Jin frowns. “But I’m not. I’m not yours,” he answers, looking down at the floor, eyes riveted to the tile. 

“I know,” Yamapi whispers. “And that’s why I can’t do this anymore.” He swallows, and thinks of Jin’s mouth, parted in ecstasy as Yamapi grinds down on him, pulling load moans from deep within Jin’s chest. He thinks of Jin’s hair spread messily across his pillow, his brow relaxed in sleep. He thinks of Jin’s smile over pancakes when Yamapi cooks breakfasts on Sundays.

Jin sits down next to Yamapi on the floor, and wraps his arms around him, warm and smelling Yamapi’s shampoo again. “I’m sorry,” Jin says, and Yamapi leans in, breathing in Jin’s essence one last time. 

Then Jin releases him slowly, and stands up. He awkwardly shoves his hands into his pockets, and shuffles in place. “I’m going to go to my parents’ place for a little while,” he says, and Yamapi curls up into a ball, resting his head on his knees, and nods. “Okay.”

Twenty minutes later, Yamapi hears the front door open and close, and he starts to sob, cold and shivering in the middle of summer, falling to pieces under an unforgiving fluorescent light. 

Whatever it is, it’s over.


	2. Chapter 2

He doesn’t know why he wants it, at first. Jin has no problems with sex, with finding girls to have sex with, with not getting enough sex. Jin devotes a lot of his time to really good sex, and sex is one of the few things in his life that Jin does purely because he enjoys it, because he can. It’s one of the few times his body belongs to him, and not to Johnny, or to millions of screaming Japanese women with his face on their little fans and his body on the calendars on their nightstands. And Jin doesn’t mind that aspect of fame at all, he likes it even, but sometimes he needs to remind himself that his body is still his own, and the easiest way, he’s found, is sex. 

And so it’s not any kind of deprivation or physical need that makes him suddenly realize that he wants Pi one night in the small bathroom of their two bedroom apartment, while Pi stands there glaring at him, dripping wet, water gliding smoothly over perfectly toned abs that glisten with moisture. It’s not an itch he has to scratch that makes him want to follow that water’s path in reverse up to Yamapi’s delicious full mouth, and then bend him over and fuck him against the shower. It’s some kind of irrational instinct that Jin can’t curb because Jin doesn’t know how to curb anything. He never tells himself no, and neither does Yamapi.

***

Jin’s an impulse buyer. He’s the kind of guy who has a million things he doesn’t need, a million shirts he never wears, and enough money that it doesn’t hurt him to act on his urges. Jin owns over 25 watches, but he’s worn the same one for years, a big, gaudy thing that Pi had given him as a joke that Jin wears now just to spite him. Whenever Jin looks at it, he smiles, thinking about the look on Pi’s face the first time Jin had worn it in a photo shoot. He tries to wear other watches, but it just makes him frown when he looks at his wrist and sees some foreign timepiece that’s not as good as the one he already had. But still, sometimes, he can’t help but see one that catches his eye with a glitzy pattern or a bizarre band, and so he buys it, without thinking about cost or utility, and it just becomes another object among the myriad of objects filling every corner of his room in their apartment. 

Jin’s an impulse buyer, but he’s also just impulsive. When he sees things he wants, he has to have them, and he doesn’t always think about consequences. When Jin watches a show one day about the joys of pet ownership, he immediately leaves the house and comes back with a black poodle. “This is Pin,” he says to Yamapi, who looks at him, face shocked and eyes blinking slowly as if trying to process the situation. 

“He’s a dog,” Yamapi says finally, and Jin laughs, because Yamapi is stating the obvious. He’s also looking at Pin as if he’s poisonous or going to turn into some rabid beast at any moment, which is silly, Jin thinks, because Pin is an adorable little poodle who’s going to be their baby forever and ever.

“He’s OUR dog,” Jin says. “Pi plus Jin equals Pin.”

Yamapi’s eyes soften toward the dog slightly at that, and even though Pi hasn’t said anything, Jin knows he’s won. Jin always wins, because Pi is a pushover, and Jin tries not to take advantage but sometimes he can’t stop himself from taking it just a little further. “X times Y equals Bakanishi,” Pi says finally. “Don’t you remember I’m allergic to dogs?”

Jin starts, guiltily, looking down at Pin and finally understanding the initial resistance to his plan. But Jin is already in love, and he looks up at Yamapi with swimming eyes. “Maybe my mom can take him,” Jin chokes out, because he has to. 

Suddenly, Yamapi has Jin wrapped in a hug, Pin whimpering, slightly alarmed, in between their bodies. “You have to vacuum every other day so that the dog hair doesn’t stick to everything,” Pi lectures. “And his food and water bowl go in your room.”

Jin sniffles a bit, and nuzzles his face into Pin’s fur, which is soft and fluffy. 

The water bowl ends up in the kitchen a week later, and sometimes Pi feeds Pin scraps from his cooking, while Jin smiles wryly at them from his seat at the table.

***

Sometimes Jin doesn’t understand his own impulses. He doesn’t know why the sight of Yamapi in the kitchen in his boxers, cracking eggs into a bowl makes him shove Yamapi onto the kitchen table, sending magazines and bills to the floor as he presses down with his mouth, exploring the smooth planes of Pi’s chest, nibbling and sucking everywhere his mouth ventures, until Yamapi is a gasping writhing moaning mess underneath his hands. Yamapi doesn’t protest when Jin’s hands slide his boxers down his legs, but he shivers, either in the cool air or under Jin’s wanting gaze, Jin isn’t sure. But Jin leans forward, his hands on either side of Yamapi’s torso, and opens his mouth on Yamapi’s, which parts to allow him access immediately, and it’s wet and hot and Yamapi is whining into his mouth as Jin moves his denim clad erection against Yamapi’s exposed cock. 

Yamapi’s hands unclench from the edge of the table, where he has been maintaining a white-knuckled grip, and slip between them, unbuttoning Jin’s jeans and frantically tugging them and Jin’s briefs down onto his thighs, and then sighing as flesh meets flesh. They slowly move against each other, hissing and grunting at the delicious friction, and then Jin comes, falling forward onto Yamapi who comes moments later. The cum is sticky between them, and Jin doesn’t know what’s whose. But when he dips a finger, and brings it to his lips to taste, he realizes it doesn’t matter, because it’s hard to tell where he ends and Pi begins when they’re like this. 

***

Lately, when Jin goes out clubbing, he wants to go home with girls that look as different from Pi as possible, because it wouldn’t be fair to compare them to perfection. 

But when he goes home with them, and he’s moving inside of them, hands wandering over hairless skin and the soft curves of breast and hip, he can’t help but long for something a little bit more familiar, hard muscles and firm skin, big hands and nails raking down his back.

The feminine moans are nowhere near as enticing as the low grunts he has to drag out through sheer force of will, and the willing body beneath him is never as enticing as Pi’s, which unfolds underneath him like a flower in the springtime, tentative and reckless in the same moment, that he intuitively understands as well as his own.

And no matter whom he goes home with, they always have full lips, bowed on the top just like his.

When he thinks about it, about his obsession, Jin can’t help but tremble, because it’s frightening and Jin knows how easily it could all fall apart. 

***

Jin remembers when Yamapi broke up with his first girlfriend, remembers wanting to protect Yamapi in the same way he’s always protected him, keeping him safe from the outside world in the circle of his arms. He remembers the chill that went down his spine --the trill of possessiveness so consuming it almost chokes him.

It’s scary, to feel so much for one person, and Jin recoils from the feeling, doesn’t want it and doesn’t need it, this all encompassing feeling of mine mine mine. It’s something he shouldn’t be feeling, and so he doesn’t. Jin’s mother once told him he shouldn’t put all of his eggs in one basket, but Jin knows, somewhere inside of himself, that if he loses Yamapi, there might not be any eggs left.

***

In the back of Jin’s closet there are more than forty barely used bottles of shampoo that he’s used once and added to the collection of 'not good enough'. He always opens the lid in the store and smells, seeing if he likes it. Then he comes home and the moment he’s rinsing it out of his hair, he knows it’s all wrong, too sweet, too flowery, too fruity. So he throws it into the closet and tries again the next time, always looking for the perfect scent, and in the meantime, he uses Yamapi’s shampoo, which smells like oatmeal and cinnamon.

The one time he does find one he likes, when he’s out on tour and he can’t just use Yamapi’s shampoo, because Yamapi’s shampoo is in the shower at their apartment, where Yamapi is, he almost uses the whole bottle before he realizes it’s the same shampoo in different packaging. 

Jin doesn’t want to think about it really, because it’s strange and nebulous and intense, but when he DOES think about it, he thinks all the other shampoos are wrong because he can only be satisfied with Yamapi’s; because when he uses it, for the rest of the day, every time he inhales, it’s like Yamapi is standing next to him, smelling of oatmeal and cinnamon. 

***

Yamapi sometimes tries to shrug Jin off, sometimes pushes him away, but Jin’s mouth is soft and warm and convincing, and Yamapi’s never been able to say no to Jin.

***

When Yamapi tells Jin he loves him, sitting half naked on the bathroom floor, bare feet planted against the hard tile and back resting against the wall of the shower, his heart exposed in his eyes, Jin’s first impulse is to run. Jin knows it’s irrational, that this is his best friend and there’s no reason for him to be so fucking terrified of feeling more, because there’s no one else in the world he could ever feel as comfortable trusting his heart to, but at the same time, he knows Yamapi has enough power to tear him to pieces, even if he never will. 

“I’m not yours,” he says, but it’s a lie, he knows it’s a lie, because he’s always been Yamapi’s, even when he was 16 and too young to know what that even meant. And Yamapi is visibly cracking apart in front of his eyes, but Jin’s shattering too, his heart beating like a rabbit caught in a hunter’s snare, and this is too big, too much, and it hurts and Jin wants everything to stay the same and it can’t now. It’ll never be the same again, and so Jin can’t resist sitting next to Pi on the floor and wrapping his arms around him. There’s a sense of finality in the embrace, and Pi leans on him for a moment, breathing in, and Jin holds frighteningly still, just trying to memorize the brush of warm muscles and sinew under smooth bronzed skin pressing against him. 

Then he stands, and shoves his hands in his pockets to keep himself from reaching out and gripping Pi’s hair and dragging their mouths together just so he can memorize that sensation too. “I’m sorry,” Jin whispers, and he’s so sorry. Sorry he’s not strong enough to face what he knows all the way down to the marrow in his bones, sorry his fear is hurting Yamapi, sorry that for the first time in his life he’s denying himself something and he doesn’t even fully know why, when it should be so easy. Sorry that he can’t control the tingling in his veins and the expansive dread at the thought of giving everything to the man in front of him.

Jin can’t understand himself, because Yamapi is safe. He’s not safe like Jin’s parents are safe, which is a warm and solid presence, radiating eternal approval no matter how many drugs Jin does or how many scandals appear in the newspaper. He’s not safe like Pin, who is loyal and stupid and eagerly waits for Jin to come home because he doesn’t know anything else. 

Pi is safe like gravity, holding Jin down to the earth when Jin feels like he’s going to float away. He’s the logical side of Jin’s world, when Jin can’t keep himself from drifting off into far-flung flights of fantasy, and Jin knows it’s the feeling of Pi behind him that reminds him that there’s plenty in the world for him where he is now, makes him remember that it’s okay to stay grounded sometimes. 

Jin knows Pi is gravity, and that gravity is necessary to keep him from flying into the sun and turning him to ashes.

“I’m going to go to my parents’ place for a little while,” Jin chokes out, somehow, and then he flees. He goes into his room, looks around at tons and tons of stuff he’s bought but doesn’t need, impulse buys, and throws 6 pairs of boxers into his backpack, grabs his cell phone, and leaves. His hands are shaking with disgust at his own cowardice, and he fumbles twice with the doorknob. When he finally steps outside and closes the door behind him, he has to squint, because today the sun is so bright, and Jin can feel it burning him already.

***

Jin’s home three days before the ache becomes unbearable. 

Jin’s mom is a better cook than Yamapi, who sometimes puts too much salt in everything and often forgets to pay attention to food once it’s on the stove, too distracted by the TV or by his iPod, or whatever. But Jin’s mom buys the wrong orange juice, the kind with the pulp in it that Jin can’t drink because the texture is all wrong. Yamapi likes the pulp, but he always buys the pulpless anyway, because he knows it’s what Jin likes. 

Jin’s mom always leaves him lunch, but she doesn’t put sesame seeds on the rice in the shape of a smiley face, like Pi does when he knows Jin’s got a long day ahead of him. Jin feels his heart drop at rehearsal when he opens his lunch box and there’s no smile waiting for him, and all he can see is Yamapi curled up on the bathroom tile telling him he loves him, and Jin wants to run away all over again. 

***

“Love is really scary,” Jin says, and his dad looks at him, calm and serious. 

“Of course it is, Jin,” he replies, and Jin clenches his hands into fists. “But love is also thrilling, and exciting. And sometimes it’s painful, and sometimes you’ll want to run away.”

Jin swallows.   
“But I didn’t raise a son who runs away from scary things Jin. I raised a son who takes care of his best friend when times are tough, who stops neighborhood bullies from picking on his little brother, even though it lands him in trouble with a lot of people, even his parents. I raised a son who goes away to a foreign country not even knowing the language, taking a chance that everyone around him is telling him is stupid, because he might be giving up stardom, but he goes anyway because his heart is telling him it’s what he needs to do.” His dad clears his throat, squinting his eyes a little, because he’s not the sort of overtly emotional type, and he’s usually soft-spoken and taciturn. “So go home, Jin. Go home and face your fears head on.”

Jin’s eyes widen, as he looks at his father, who is looking at him a little too knowingly. “Thanks,” he mumbles, and Jin knows this is love, too-- the kind he’s known his whole life, because he was blessed with amazing parents. 

Jin's been blessed with a lot of wonderful people to love in his life. Like...

Maybe he can face something new after all. Because love is scary, but living without having even tried might be even scarier.

***

Jin takes his cell phone out of his pocket, and hits speed-dial number 2.

Yamapi’s voice, quiet and strained, is on the other end of the line. “Hello?” he says, and Jin thinks he sounds cold, and tired, and alone, and so sad that Jin wants... 

“Pi,” Jin says, and he hears Yamapi’s sharp intake of breath and suddenly he’s scared all over again, his resolve wavering, and he just wants to hang up.

“Jin,” Pi says, and Jin can see him, as if he’s right there in front of him, and Jin takes a calming breath. 

“I can’t find any shampoo worth using,” Jin says, and Yamapi chuckles, a strange sound somewhere between laughing and crying.

“Yeah?” Pi asks.

“Yeah,” Jin replies. “I guess...I guess I’ll just have to come home and use yours.”

Yamapi is quiet, but then. "You can always come home to me, Jin. I'm waiting."

Jin's fingers clench around the phone almost desperately, and he takes a deep breath. "I'm on my way," he says.

Whatever this is, between them, it makes Jin want to be brave.


End file.
